Posts by freemindfade

17

Jehovahs Witness Shunning & the Crusades

by freemindfade in

while discussing being mistreated by my own jw family last night with my wife, i wanted to try to make her think critically about what shunning really is, and at its root what how beneficial it is.

earlier in the day i sent her non-apostate scholarly article on religious shunning being tantamount to psychological torture.

and most witnesses don't think into much about why they do things, its more of a "this is the way we do it, don't over think it" process.

Yes thank you, inquisition, too early to start typing these things lol.

It has become so ingrained in the JWdom, like 1914, that no matter how gravely wrong, it seems they can't change it now, to quote the movie 'Focus' die with the lie....

17

Jehovahs Witness Shunning & the Crusades

by freemindfade in

while discussing being mistreated by my own jw family last night with my wife, i wanted to try to make her think critically about what shunning really is, and at its root what how beneficial it is.

earlier in the day i sent her non-apostate scholarly article on religious shunning being tantamount to psychological torture.

and most witnesses don't think into much about why they do things, its more of a "this is the way we do it, don't over think it" process.

freemindfade

While discussing being mistreated by my own JW family last night with my wife, I wanted to try to make her think critically about what shunning really is, and at its root what how beneficial it is.

Earlier in the day i sent her non-apostate scholarly article on religious shunning being tantamount to psychological torture

And most witnesses don't think into much about why they do things, its more of a "this is the way we do it, don't over think it" process.

So I told my wife, visualize dark age priests and religious leaders who would physically torture a "heretic" in order to get them to say, "what was I thinking... of course the earth is flat... yes there is a god... please can we put the fire out now, thanks"...

If the end means is same, to cause someone to be forced to claim they believe what the church says because of the extreme discomfort, either physiological or physical, what does that really accomplish?

Physical and Psychological torture are abhorrent, most witnesses would never consider shunning to be the second one, but it absolutely is.
if someone concedes and says "ok, I am wrong, you were right all along" just to get the torture to stop, it didn't make them a believer it just made them want to stop the pain. Again, what was the point? Ego.
If someone refuses, they are in effect tortured to death, in dark ages literally, in these wacko modern religions socially they are executed. They refuse and they are dead to all former witnesses, and in the case of "apostasy", the whole thing I think makes them never want to return, and see it for what it really is. This is probably where you get the stat that 2/3 never return. (by the way I hear this statistic a lot, does anyone have references to where it came from?)

Anyway, just sharing my musings. Witnesses never think too deeply into these things, I know when I was "in" I just followed the rules too. If anyone is interested in watching a video to that end, check this out:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y-PvBo75PDo

6

Autotune the Governing Body

by SonoftheTrinity in

which would be the best talks to autotune?.

freemindfade

Lett or morris or a combination of the 2

cappytan we should make this a project

A rap about education...

we could autotune some of their education rants, with uneducated, bad grammar, not even english words, sprinkled throughout...

"thinky-ist"

9

JW.org is sponsoring now??????

by wannaexit in

jw
friends

please pay close attention at the beginning 0.36-0.47 when sponsors are seen.. https://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=8yaxdra8f9q#t=47.

freemindfade

Maybe they just put that in there without permission because it appears to them to be a popular site in their country and they want to appear themselves to be sponsored by a heavy hitter lol. I call shenanigans most likely

24

Letter to a DF Parent

by thedepressedsoul in

thank you for raising me in this religion, this religion that when people get disfellowshipped you have to cut off all communication, even family.

thank you for making sure all of my friends, work partners, family and 99% of my life was centered around this organization.

thank you for taking the time to study with me, read the bible, making me excluded from all school activities and friends so that my whole social life was surrounded by jw.

freemindfade

I now have a JW wife,responsibilities, friends and family all with expectations!

I would venture to say most of us have been there. Its not just you, the thing is designed to make expectations a gigantic psychological burden to bare. Fear Obligation Guilt... You need to rise about those things. It's scary but when you take control it will be well worth the freedom you feel, and the peace you will experience.

21

New Mascot - Translator Robot

by Slave4_38y in

this is the latest offering from the caleb/sophia duo - lesson 16, preach in a foreign language.

.

freemindfade

*sigh*

I think my family took more offense to my criticizing these ridiculous cartoons than criticizing the GB and YHWH put together. That is a telling sign of how silly this thing is becoming.

102

A couple questions for atheists on Suffering

by little_Socrates in

who told you that the world should be free from suffering?.

do you find any value in suffering?.

do you think it is possible to experience all the beauty and goodness and pleasure the world offers without also experiencing the bad?

freemindfade

I agree, when you apply continuous (real) quality improvement to your personal life and the world around you, you will actually see changes. It does't bring world peace overnight, but living this Kaizan way is very fulfilling, something we were deprived of as JW's, they equate improving the world to bringing as many people into the cult as possible, it rarely causes any real improvement to the world, although when you are "in" you don't believe that.

I agree that something like the bulk of the ten commandments are just factors lending to a strong social circle, which is needed to survive and adapt through evolution. Thats why if you find a tribe on an island that has never been touched by modern civilization as we know it, they practice similar moral codes within their tribe.

102

A couple questions for atheists on Suffering

by little_Socrates in

who told you that the world should be free from suffering?.

do you find any value in suffering?.

do you think it is possible to experience all the beauty and goodness and pleasure the world offers without also experiencing the bad?

freemindfade

I think an even better question is how much less suffering would there be in this world without theism?

If you get cancer and suffer from it that is awful, we are conditioned that it needs to be attached to something specific like God is causing it, or God is allowing it, or the Devil did it. Just imagine for a moment its none of those things. Then its just a bad roll of the dice.

Now there is suffering inflicted upon people and animals.

I think it's not a sweeping solution, but I believe in continuous improvement. If you have someone that hurts animals just for the sake of causing suffering, or people, like a child molester, they are a bad force in themselves and should be dealt with accordingly.

Ideas can also be bad, such as islam, watch the Ben Affleck and Bill Maher argument. The ideas of it and its laws lead to a lot of human suffering, its a bad idea, it should be eliminated. Who knows over time how much "evil" or "suffering" could be eliminated with actually working on removing the true causes and not just saying it's and unknown evil force at play, like god and satan wagering over the suffering of Job. Thats my mom's mentality, I have suffered my life the devil did it, the devil did it, the devil did it. Everything. Persecution complex.

I like this quote, the idea behind it is very good. Even though I am an atheist, I would have no problem quoting a teaching of Jesus if I feel it made sense, so likewise I am not advocating any religious group here, but the quote is good:

“When you think everything is someone else’s fault, you will suffer a lot. When you realize that everything springs only from yourself, you will learn both peace and joy.”

- His Holiness the 14th Dalai Lama

24

Letter to a DF Parent

by thedepressedsoul in

thank you for raising me in this religion, this religion that when people get disfellowshipped you have to cut off all communication, even family.

thank you for making sure all of my friends, work partners, family and 99% of my life was centered around this organization.

thank you for taking the time to study with me, read the bible, making me excluded from all school activities and friends so that my whole social life was surrounded by jw.

freemindfade

Thank you for raising me up this way, centering my whole life around this religion I don’t even believe in so you can just walk out and leave me holding the bag!

thats gotta be tough, this is sort of a reverse situation, very sad. But you say you know this is not the truth, and life is short and meant to be beautiful. Speak to your parents. You need to shed the fear of losing everyone in, all your friends and life, I know the stress of feeling that, but there are things you can do and not lose it all. We think being out 100% mentally and doing what we actually want outside of the judging eyes of the borg will get us DA'd, but it wont, this place is full of faders. And some who may not even be physically 'faded' but still doing what they feel they have to while being in full possession of there mind.

Family is important, please speak in person.

66

BART EHRMAN answers my question

by TerryWalstrom in

as a member on bart ehrman's blog, i am able to ask him direct questions.is jehovah in the bible?.

question:.

how firmly grounded in reality is the claim of jehovahs witnesses that the divine name (jehovah) belongs in the new testament?.

freemindfade

Great read, I too have looked into all this in the past, when my wife just asked me last night if I could ever see myself learning to love 'Jehovah' I said you have to understand what the means to me when you say that, are you talking about El? Elohim? YHWH? Jehovah is a made up word, and not all to creative at that. Canaanites chief pagan god was 'El' and YHWH was one of their pantheon of gods, so I guess I am sort of like that ancient @$$hole Pharaoh when he said "Who is this Jehovah?".... no seriously, who is he? because no one could really say.